So, we finally arrive at Dougga which is on a hilltop next to another tiny village. Apparantly there are some people who live near there (arabic people) who believe themselves to be descendents of the Roman people of Dougga. The tour guide seemed to treat this as a joke, insinuating that these people are crazy, but I wondered why else anyone would live out here. One thing to know about museums etc in Europe: they have so many that they treat them VERY differently than we do in the US. For example, while we are touring the ruins, a man on his donkey comes down a hill in the middle of the ruins presumably to go get water or something. In the baths, there were ancient "pipes" that the water used to run through. We were encouraged to put our fingers up in them to see how they worked. In the US, the entire site would have been behind plexiglass. Seriously, I recently went to Mount Vernon, something about 1700 years younger than Dougga, and there was serious ropeage to keep us from breathing on anything, much less touching anything. Just interesting to meI know you are dying to see what I am talking about, so I will show you our first view of Dougga.

This is entering the amphitheatre from behind/backstage.

This is backstage/in the wings. Notice the awesome half statue on the right.

Me, talking to my now friend and tour guide, Tarek on the stage. The acoustics were crazy amazing. I wanted to sing so badly.

Day 5- Traveling to Dougga. So, I am not one of those women that has to use the restroom all the time. I have known them, and I am not one. But, for some reason on this particular day, about 2 hours into the trip to Dougga, it hit me bad. I suffer in silence for awhile until I just have to ask the tour guide how much longer we have left. My answer: "oh we must be at least halfway by now" I couldn't help it, I just started crying. I just kept thinking "I am stuck in this bus, with over an hour left to go to some ruin in the middle of Africa on my birthday and I have to pee worse than I ever have in my life." After 15 minutes or so of crying and James trying to comfort me, I am forced to explain my situation to the tour guide. Very kindly, he suggests that we stop at a cafe in a little town he knows nearby. I am so relieved, I cannot even tell you.We finally get to the little town, which is really more like a village to you and me, and the younger of the tour guides walks me in and deals with the guy running the cafe so that I can find relief. I am pointed to this closet basically with a door that has no lock and barely shuts. The toilet has no seat, and there is no paper and it is really not clean at all. Do I care? Uh, uh. I have my trusty paper that I jacked from the ship As I leave, the other ladies have lined up at the door, with all their husbands behind them. Turns out, everyone needed the facilities, I was just the only one willing to speak up. Oh, and no one else thought to bring paper, so my roll made its way through the whole tour group and I was the hero. Of the restroom... I was talking to the younger tour guide, and it turns out that cafes in this part of Tunisia do not allow women inside them. So, they were very kind in letting us enter etc. After we are all finished, the older tour guide decides that this is a great opportunity to show us what small town Tunisian life is like. Let me tell you, it is not like our life. Just walking down the street, the "stores" were just little alcoves in a brick wall with no electricity or running water. We passed a "barber shop" which was just a barber's chair in the alcove and a bowl of water on a table. Next was a clothing store, which was just robes hung all over the alcove walls and a table of shoes. There was a fruit stand and a drug store which just had toiletry type stuff. Many of the women were wearing the full burka, and some of the people would try to turn away to make sure we couldn't take a picture of them. It was such an interesting experience. Here are some photos.

This last photo is the government building of this city, which is probably why it is so nice. I really loved all the blue and white and hope to see Sidi Bou Said next time which is a city all painted in the blue and white. The reason for the colors is that the white is cooler and the blue is to turn away the mosquitos. We finally leave our unscheduled detour, and head out to Dougga!

Day 5- Today we get to Africa! This is the only true port excursion that we booked because, after all the research I did, I just didn't feel comfortable that we could do everything we wanted on our own and not get ripped off. Plus, we wanted to see something that, apparently hardly anyone else was interested in seeing....Dougga. What is Dougga, you ask? Well, imagine Pompeii without the crowds in the middle of nowheres-ville Africa and you have Dougga. It was a Roman city way long ago, and somehow the ruins survived very intact. From what we heard, Carthage was not anywhere near as nice as Dougga. Unfortunately, I think Disney quit offering this excursion. Why? Well, we were about to find out. So we got up, all excited, and had room service for breakfast so that we could get down to Sessions in time to leave for our excursion. As we pulled in, we were treated to a great view of the port from our veranda. There were belly dancers, people standing on camels and a marching bad. It was really hard to imagine that, here we were in Africa, considering that we had only recently added Europe to our passports. And it is my birthday. How weird is that?! Celebrating a birthday in Africa. It certainly will be one I always remember. After taking pictures of some of the craziness going on outside, we head down to meet up for our excursion. Now if you have ever been on an excursion, you know there are usually quite a few people involved, even some of them filling up multiple buses. Ours? Us and 3 other couples. Yep. We are the youngest of the couples. One of them looks to be maybe my parents ages, and the other two are easily in their late sixties. This was the cheapest excursion also, so I have no idea why others didn't want to do it. Maybe because Carthage has more name cache or something, but let me tell you... we got a deal and had amazing personal attention from our tour guides as there were 2 of them for 8 of us. As we prepare to leave, somehow restroom facilities come up in conversation, and I think to take a roll of TP from the ship to "cover our butts" We all load up on our huge bus and start the long trek to Dougga. Now, the excursion description said that it was an hour and a half away, but I assume someone was lying to someone about that because, while it was 90 miles away, it was no hour and a half.

Day 4- Back on the ship. Relaxing etc.When we get back on the boat, of course we have to eat because it has been like 3 hours since lunch I got a drink of the day, none of which were really to my taste, but they were cheaper, so I kept trying them. One thing is for sure, they do not skimp on the alcohol for these creations. Especially if you order directly from the bar and talk to the bartender a bit. I refilled my drink with Sprite when I got halfway through twice and was still tasting the alcohol. I really enjoyed this afternoon, watching The Jungle Book on deck, eating pizza and drinking my very strong concoction while looking out on the beautiful harbor of Malta. After a nap, James and I decided to scope out a "Cruisin for Trivia" that was to take place in the Promenade Lounge. When we got there, 5 minutes early, Oscar was already packing up and no one else was there. We pointed out that it wasn't even supposed to have started yet, and Oscar did the game just for us. Now, James is VERY competitive and we have different scopes of knowledge, so as a team, we are really strong. Despite the fact that we were playing against no one, we still got 19-20 questions correct and probably would have won anyway. So we got these snazzy baseball caps that say "Winner" on them, ensuring that you can't actually wear them anywhere and are extremely proud of ourselves. We decide to test our luck further and play "Mediterranean" Bingo which is for cruise merchandise in addition to the money. Although we didn't win any money, James was one of the 3 people to win a prize and got the one I wanted: the coffee cup. That evening the entertainment was, finally on the big stage, Phil Keller: Magician/Illusionist Extraordinaire. And, of course, his lovely assistant in her leopard print, halter top, catsuit. So, here are the highlights:1. The typical, cut her in half thing, except her head ends up on a different table across the stage and one of the heads is obviously a mannequin or something. Yay!2. He calls a kid up to make his tennis shoe disappear and reappear. The kid is entirely uninterested the whole time and actually says no(!) when Phil offers him something for his trouble. Phil had to practically force him to take the magic kit he had for the kid. 3. Best for Last! Phil was going to levitate about his chair. In a karate gi. With Eastern style music playing. And his assistant dramatically swiping her arm under ONE side of Phil between him and the chair, not the other because that is where the pole was holding up his little lift under his bumm. It was so dramatic!!! Dinner at Animator's Palate followed. I have pictures, but they aren't great. If you want to see them, you will have to tell me. Dinner failed to impress, and I have to admit I was disappointed with the "show". The Disney Cruise Line show on the travel channel makes it out like it is way better than it is. And the food wasn't great. We actually went to bed right after dinner missing the adult performance of the ventriloquist which we heard was hysterical. Next time!__________________

Day 4- Trampling around Valletta. So, last I wrote, we were wandering in the residential section of Valletta. We saw a little shop, and James decided he wanted more souvenirs, so he went in to look around. A group of kids that had just gotten out of school raced passed me in their uniforms (most kids on Malta go to Catholic school) and I began to wonder what was taking James. I go in, and it turns out he is trying to pick out a birthday present for me which is the next day. The lady running the shop had a daughter a little older than Veronica, and she was so cute. She was running around, talking to us and pulling things off shelves. I ended up telling James not to worry about it and purchasing a corkscrew and cork for some wine we had bought at the terminal in Barcelona. When we left, James got a wild hair to find the church with the dome that you can see in the skyline. Crazy enough, he led us straight to it. But boy, it was not easy to find. It is just a small door, and in Malta, most things look the same. There was no big outside facade, but we headed in and there was this priest manning the door. It was free, but you could give a donation. The church was all white on the inside which turned out to be rare in Europe. The acoustics were amazing. I wanted to sing so badly, but I restrained myself. I sat down for the first time since I got that suitcase and prayed a little while James explored the church. Even the church is fairly new, we felt it was worth seeing if only for the dome. It was impressive. After, we kept walking up the street (literally up, apparently the Maltese built their city this way on purpose to make it difficult for those who may attack to get to the city center), we ended up right where we started on the main street in town. I was exhausted and still in pain by this point, so I begged James to let us go back to the ship for some rest and a shoe change. We ended up staying on the ship, relaxing and snacking. He wanted to go back out, but I was done. The morale of this story: don't burn out immediately. There is time to see stuff, and if you don't get to it, at least you enjoyed what you did see.

We spent a good 20 minutes searching for La Mere for lunch as it was a tiny hole in the wall. We passed it twice before seeing the sign. When we entered, there were no other customers, but we were hungry and did not care. The menu was diverse without being scary, and James and I both ended up with pasta. James had a broccoli soup for his appetizer; it was HUGE. Actually all of our portions were huge and we didn't eat half of it. A couple of weird things about this restaurant: the kitchen was in the basement and they sent the food up in a little food elevator that had a wooden door and there was no tap water. I don't know if they didn't have running water or if maybe the water was not safe to drink, but you could not get tap water at this place. We enjoyed it, but were not blown away. At least it was fairly cheap. Oh, and it began to fill up with other tourists and Malta business men as we ate.After, we walked out onto the street almost right into a temporary market. We began heading to the Knight's Palace and spotted some suitcases at the market. Remember, we only brought backpacks. Our plan was to buy a suitcase or bag in Europe to transport our souvenirs back to the states and here was our chance. I asked the price and it was 15 euros for a good sized suitcase. Although I probably should have bargained, I considered that a really fair price and paid it. So now I am trampling around Valletta in my new sandals, fast hubby and new suitcase. And Valletta is mostly stone streets. Fun.We arrive at the palace and pay more than it is worth to enter. We breeze through the hall, see a few nicely appointed rooms and take pictures with suits of armor.

We pass a Disney tour that we are thrilled to not be a part of because whatever we paid to enter (10 euros a piece), they paid more. (And probably had to spend more time looking at boring stuff/waiting for people to use the restroom) We finally come to the armory which is interesting to James because he can see armor and weapons actually used by the knights in the battles he has read up on. I, on the other hand, pretty bored. After the palace, James wants to explore and walk down to the fort that he read so much about to see if he can walk around it. On top of all the problems I have mentioned previously, I start to get this sharp pain in my foot that feels like a pulled tendon or something. Does James care? Um, no. I should just "suck it up" and am probably faking anyway to get him to slow down. So after we ramble all the way down to the fort and discover that inside is just a WWII museum (which I already knew due to my research), he decides to not go in. Now we are on the other side of the city, which granted, is not that big, but we are not in the tourist area anymore. Now, as uncomfortable as I was, I kinda love this part about traveling: seeing how other people live.